


knowledge is power; power corrupts

by clairelutra (exosolarmoon), sharpshooting



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Babysitter AU, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Gen, Lotor Big Bang, Shenanigans, a couple ships TBA, not big ones just implied ones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 05:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15744975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharpshooting/pseuds/sharpshooting
Summary: Study hard, Katie. Study hard and be evil.Lotor needs pocket money, the Holts need a babysitter for their troublemaking daughter, and Katie needs someone to keep her from dying of boredom in the long hours her family spends away from home. The solution is obvious.Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Lotor and Katie get along like a house afire.(Written for theLotor Big Bangon tumblr with the lovelyRuxi~)





	knowledge is power; power corrupts

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAaaahhh this has been such a fun fic ;o; me 'n' rux brainstormed it around the time we signed up for the LBB, but somehow i didn't predict how much fun chemistry these two would have :D
> 
> unfortunately, it's not quite done yet; the past few weeks have been... rough, to say the least.
> 
> THAT SAID i know where it's going and i'll be working on it once i'm not drowning in burnout and doctor's appointments. :') sorry for the wait;;
> 
> RUXI DID SOME AMAZING ART FOR THIS FIC and i will link it once i get the link (9'-')9
> 
> enjoy~

The meeting started out as... inauspicious.

Katie eyed down the tall, dark, handsome teenager that her parents had deemed her new babysitter, carefully sizing him up.

He seemed like the kind of person who would mess up her hair, but probably let her play video games past midnight... probably.

Today would be a test. If he failed... well.

He also looked like the kind of person who would quit if she dyed his hair lavender. He might dig his heels in if she spent her time escaping out the back window, though, so she should be careful.

Not every demoralization tactic worked on every babysitter, and Katie had become an _expert_ at demoralizing babysitters.

Some caved under cheerful, innocent insults directed at everything about them, but this one looked thick-skinned. Some caved under loud, 'accidental' noises in varying parts of the house whenever they settled in with their phones or books, but this one looked like he might just be amused by that. Some caved under repeated nights of panicked phone calls when she disappeared, but somehow, Katie suspected that this guy would apparate onto the front lawn before she even got down the porch steps.

Hair dye it was.

"This is Lotor," her mother said to Katie once they had finished up with the requisite small talk. She gathered up her coat and bag. "I'll be back by ten. Katie..."

Katie widened her eyes. "Yes, mother?"

Her mother was unimpressed. _"Behave."_

"Yes, mother." No skin off Katie's back. She'd been planning to behave today anyway. Not that her mother saying that didn't plant an overwhelming urge to misbehave just for the sake of it, but the urge would pass.

Today was for testing.

The door clicked shut, leaving Katie and the babysitter, Lotor, standing side by side. Lotor eyed her down with a faintly amused smile, arms folded loosely over his chest.

That was not the unsuspecting smile of an easy victim. It was a pretty _astute_ smile, actually.

Could he have noticed her sizing him up?

Katie felt her shoulders draw up, the oncoming fight brewing under her skin. "...What?"

The smile grew. He tilted forward a little, too sly, too knowing. "You look like a troublemaker."

_Tch._

_"You_ look like a prep," Katie informed him coolly. He _wasn't_ going to be an easy sell. Or an easy return-for-rebate, as it were. She was going to have to get into a tussle with life's manager to get her money back, she could see it now.

(He did look like a prep, though. Timeless white dress shirt draped over a dark T-shirt, clean-fit jeans and sneakers? Even his long, (bleached?) pale hair was too well-kept look punk-ish. Sharp grey eyes and flawless brown skin just managed to make him look like some eastern royal or something.

Teenagers were supposed to be pimply. They were _all_ pimply. Katie felt ripped off.)

He tilted his head, looking even more entertained than before. "This is just my disguise."

Yeah, right. Pull the other one. "For what?"

"Troublemaking."

...Well.

She hadn't expected that.

She faltered, startled, but before she could ask, Lotor was straightening and turning towards the hallway. "Have you had dinner? I forgot to ask."

"I, er, no?" Katie admitted, unbalanced. Lotor was already investigating the house, poking his long nose (but only his nose) into each of the rooms and seemingly... counting the windows?

"Tell me when you're hungry," he said, almost absently. He wandered back and took up residence on the living room couch. "I was told to order takeout."

"Yeah, sure," said Katie, because honestly, what else _could_ she say?

Lotor the pulled his backpack closer to him, taking out a textbook and a notebook and a pencil (just... free-floating in his bag? Didn't he ruin all his books like that?), and setting up to... study.

"...Are you _sure_ you're not a prep?"

He barely glanced up at her as he flipped through his textbook. "Yes."

Katie was seriously doubting his creds. "What kind of troublemaker spends their free time _studying?_ Shouldn't you be, like, causing trouble or something?

He shot her a bland look. "I'm being paid to make sure the child of my mother's old colleague doesn't come to harm. How would I benefit from causing trouble here?"

Katie felt kind of dumb, which sucked, because she didn't like feeling dumb very much. "I-I guess..."

The textbook was thick and heavy, its pages frail as Lotor searched for his place.

Katie squinted at it and asked, "Is that college psychology?"

Lotor brightened. "Indeed."

"...How old are you?"

"Sixteen." He flipped another page. "How old are _you?"_

"...Twelve," Katie mumbled as she processed that. Then, "Why are you reading college textbooks?"

"Because I'm in college."

Exasperation was building a headache behind Katie's temples. "Why would a _troublemaker_ be in _college?"_ _Especially at sixteen?_

The look Lotor shot her this time was much deeper, much more serious, and almost comically dry. "So they can start bigger trouble."

Which, well...

Katie couldn't argue with that.

"So... if you graduate early you can cause bigger trouble sooner?" she guessed. She found the arm of the couch pressing against her thighs—she'd edged up to the unoccupied end of it without noticing.

Lotor surprised her with a sage, "You can always cause bigger trouble," then he tilted his book so she could see the cover more easily. _Group Psychology and the Ethics of Propaganda._ "But you have to know how. Education helps."

Katie was impressed. She didn't _want_ to be impressed, but she was.

"So... what, you wanna become a world leader or something?" she asked. She tried to make it a joke, but it didn't quite feel like one when it left her mouth.

"Not quite," he replied. He was enviably casual and collected. "But I would like to know that I could do it."

Katie could get behind that logic.

"So," Lotor said as he settled in with his notepad and his book, "what did you plan to do with your evening?"

"Uh," said Katie, fumbling for something that wasn't _heckle you until you snap so I can cry to my parents when they come back_. She turned back towards the door, remembering abruptly that she'd shut her handheld in the middle of a battle. "Video games, I guess."

Lotor hummed. "No homework?"

Katie didn't flinch. She didn't! "What's it to you?"

"I _am_ looking after you."

"If you were a _real_ troublemaker, you'd be trying to corrupt me," she shot back.

It was occurring to her that there were several things wrong with this picture: She did have homework. Lotor was proving frustratingly difficult to dislike. He technically had control of her access to deep fried cheese-lover's pizza, and she suspected that he might actually be willing to order it for her if she played her cards right.

The corner of his mouth hooked incorrigibly. "That's what I'm doing."

She narrowed her eyes at him, the hardwood floor cool through her socks, the fridge motor purring to life in the background. She suspected he was about to trick her into doing something horribly prep-ish, and she didn't like _that_ either.

Indeed, the words that came out of his mouth were _utter bullshit_.

"Knowledge is power," he said, smug, "and power corrupts."

 _"No,"_ Katie blurted, but Lotor went on.

"Study hard, Katie." He looked up and grinned at her. "Study hard, and be evil."

Katie turned on her heel and stomped up the stairs.

* * *

By the time Colleen Holt got back, Katie was done with her homework (and then some), and Lotor had exactly thirteen and a half excuses for the deep-fried cheese-lover's pizza box resting on the stove, each one tailored to a possible response. It still didn't feel like enough, but the key in the lock had cut the fourteenth at the quick, and then it was showtime.

To his utter bafflement, after the customary, "I'm home!" Colleen stuck her nose in the air and said, "Is that cheese-lover's pizza I smell? Is there any left for me?"

There was, actually, and at no point during the proceedings did she expect answers for the (objectively terrible) act of feeding her child a heart-attack in a box. Lotor was wary of the reprieve, but cautiously willing to accept it at face value.

Though, the way she choked on her pizza when Lotor assured her that Katie had finished her homework was inordinately pleasing.

Further checks established that Katie had, indeed, finished her homework—had even gone _beyond_ that in her zeal.

(She'd stomped back down the stairs about an hour or so after she'd left, and then set up shop on the coffee table, the look on her face telling him that she was prepared to out-study him or die trying.

She'd only had the last vestiges of her day's work left, but after that Lotor had found himself explaining algebra concepts covering the next month or so, reminding her of particles and vocabulary as she powered through French and suggesting alternate essay formats when she arrived at History. It was much more interesting than he'd expected it to be.

Or, at least, _teaching_ was more interesting than he expected. 6th grade homework could go hang.)

From Coleen's face, Lotor gathered that this wasn't something that happened often at all.

The complicated fury on Katie's face was something to behold as her mother walked him to the door, and Lotor wondered if that meant he wouldn't be invited back.

It was a sadder thought than he expected, and for more reasons than just losing the pocket money this provided him with.

There was a kindred spirit in Katie, he thought. It would've been nice to spend more time with her.

But Coleen gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze as she showed him to the door. "It looks like Katie has taken quite a shine to you. My husband has a work arrangement next Saturday, and I'm going to be out of town—are you free?"

"Ah, yes," Lotor stumbled, caught off guard.

"Good." Coleen pulled out her wallet and handed him his payment. "I'll text you with the details. Thank you again."

"Of course," he said, nodding to her and then walking back to his car.

(The car wasn't quite "his", of course, but he was allowed to use one of his father's many (many, many, many) cars for going out at night like this. It would be unseemly for the bastard son of Zarkon to be found dead in a ditch somewhere... or something.)

He normally disliked Saturdays, given that there was no school on Saturdays and he was forced to stay home, but... this. This was something to look forward to.

* * *

Katie sucked on the butt of her pen, plastic warmed to the exact temperature of her mouth and scraping her tongue. Across the table from her was Lotor, who was once again peacefully thumbing through a psychology textbook.

She'd finished her homework again. It grated on her pride as a troublemaker, but Lotor made it easier somehow, willing to snark at the dumb questions with her and help her untangle the real snarly ones. Being a "good girl" was the condition for him coming back, yeah, but even just having company while she did brainless worksheets was... nice. Fun.

Still. It wasn't troublemaking.

"Do you know how to pick locks?" she finally asked. Her parents didn't check her internet history, but it was still a skill she hadn't quite come up with the courage to search the web for.

And yet, it would be _so useful._

Lotor's eyebrow twitched minutely. ( _A tell?_ ) "I do."

"Can you teach me?"

He sized her up, those cool blue eyes piercing right through all her hidden intentions and guile—or lack thereof. She really did just want to learn because she thought it would be useful.

Eventually he gave a little shrug. "Alright. You'll need a kit... or a hairpin."

Katie didn't have a kit, but she had hairpins, and together, they chose the back door to work with. It was odd, crouching side-by-side with him, his shoulder bumping periodically against hers and his voice almost too quiet to catch, but it wasn't bad.

Just like he'd explained algebra, Lotor gently guided her through jiggling the tumblers into submission, and how to do it quietly enough that there was only the quiet click of the door unlocking.

It wasn't just that though.

As she worked, Lotor kept up a steady stream of advice.

"Hold your wrist like— yes, that's it. Always to remember to triple-check you kits; the last thing you want is to find yourself empty-handed at a critical moment. Keep several of the long wires—they're incredibly useful, but they snap. Push _there_ and— you need at least three viable exits in any situation. People rarely think to block off the third."

Katie blinked. That was actually... pretty helpful. She hesitated a second, then asked, "What if there are only two?"

"Wait." A long finger tapped her wrist, and Katie twitched it back into position. "If it's absolutely critical, make sure that at least one of the exits is clear of bottlenecking and debris—preferably both. Pay attention to ceiling heights. If you don't have a clear shot at at least one opening, don't risk it."

"Huh," said Katie. Hesitantly, she ventured, "So... the dumbwaiter would be a bad idea, but my parents' bedroom upstairs still works?"

"Hmm," said Lotor in a disagreeing sort of tone. "Only one good entrance; don't count on being able to escape from the window, it's too exposed. You _don't_ want to be seen. The bathroom is a dead end."

Katie paused in her fiddling and cocked her head. The slight movement of her wrist got one of the tumblers to turn under her hairpin. "It's not a dead end."

Lotor turned, leaning back so he didn't get a faceful of her hair. "...There's no way to escape from it."

"It's got a window too," Katie argued, "and it hasn't had a screen in ages."

"It's still placed in the front wall," Lotor argued back. "Even if you could get out of it—and that would be far more dangerous than getting caught—you would face the same problems as with the main window."

"Tree," she explained. "It covers the left side of the—" then she broke off with a sigh.

Lotor still didn't look convinced.

"C'mon, I'll show you."

* * *

She made Lotor stand under the tree in the front yard, the one that obscured the left side of the house, and charged up to her parents' bedroom, snagging her rope on the way up.

She fastened it into a knot as she ran, not working _quite_ quick enough to have it done when she got there, but close enough. Making the last two twists and pulling it tight with her teeth, she eyed her escape route. The window crank _should_ bear her ninety-three pounds just fine, and she was probably small enough to wiggle out sideways—and she could definitely get out diagonally if she had to.

This settled, she looped her sailor's knot over the base of the crank and used the toilet to give her a leg up.

It required a little bit of a somersault to get out, and somersaulting out of a second-story window would be a terrifying experience for any troublemaker. Katie kept her head though, making sure to keep a grip on the sill as the world spun. Once out, she tested her weight on the rope.

It held just like she wanted it to. Excellent.

She started carefully lowering herself down hand over hand—and found herself with a problem: her rope wasn't long enough.

She was still dangling uncomfortably far away from the ground.

Well, that sucked. She couldn't just prove Lotor _right_ like this.

She huffed a sigh at the rose bushes below her, then took stock of her situation. She was too far away to jump down; there was a window below her, but the sill wasn't wide enough for her to get a grip; the walls on wither side of her were flat stucco; and behind her was...

Oh right, the tree!

She hefted herself up a bit to more easily look over her shoulder, setting her feet against the wall like a rock climber.

The foliage was dense, and it was so dark she could barely see anyway, but the porchlight reflected on heavy-looking branch chopped flat not three feet in front of her nose.

_Score!_

She crouched bouncing experimentally against the wall, then, when satisfied that her rope wouldn't drop her before she wanted it to, she unwound her hand from its length and shoved off the wall for real.

There was a stomach-dropping second of weightless freedom, then her free hand caught a grip on the tree branch.

It was much, much rougher than the monkey bars on her school's playground, but she managed. A few scrapes were _nothing_ to a _real_ troublemaker.

She swung herself to the trunk, hand over hand, and then she could reach some of the lower branches. From there, it was nothing to scamper down to the ground; she'd climbed that tree a hundred times, after all.

Hopping off the lowest branch and sticking her landing, she tossed her ponytail and sniffed at an oddly pale Lotor.

"See? Told you so."

"...So you did." He took a long, slow breath, only a little bit of color returning under his dark tan. "But let's see about getting you a longer rope."

* * *

Lotor took it as a sign that Colleen Holt hadn't heard about that particular incident when she asked if he could babysit Katie on a more regular basis; she had a new teaching job at the local college and needed him to look after her daughter—about five hours twice a week. Her brother would get home in the late evening, she assured him, but Katie needed supervision in the meantime.

Lotor wondered if he could get hazard pay, but figured that a hundred and fifty dollars a week in spending money was probably worth the occasional heart attack.

Of course, there was only so much time two people could spend doing homework and lock-picking practice together, and they hit that threshold fast. Katie had the technique down in three days anyway.

It was thanks to this that they both found themselves at the local park.

It was such a _normal_ place to be that Lotor was still blinking over it a little bit.

Two bored teenagers (or one teenager and one preteen) taking turns pushing each other on a swing set. How utterly, _bizarrely_ normal.

"Do you think people eat peanuts on purpose?" Katie wondered idly, swinging back and forth over the same two feet of beaten wood chips.

"I've eaten peanuts on purpose," Lotor offered, leaning on the chains and providing her with momentum.

Katie was silent for one long, worrying second, then she looked up at him with a horrible little grin. "Does that mean you're a... nutcase?"

Lotor stared at her for a moment, then rocked backwards, pulling the chains with him, and _shoved,_ sending Katie sailing through a smooth, graceful arc.

Her gleeful laugh said that his admonishment had missed its mark.

"Lotor?"

Lotor froze.

"What are you doing— did you kidnap a _child?"_

"I did _no_ such thing," Lotor spluttered.

Acxa, whose horror slowly fading into bafflement, beheld Lotor and the still-giggling Katie. "...Then where would you get a child?"

"I'm babysitting," he said, trying not to sound too defensive. "Do you _really_ think I would kidnap a child?"

Behind him, Katie was slowing herself down to see what the confusion was about.

"Well," said Ezor reasonably, "you've kidnapped adults before."

Which, frankly, was rude and uncalled for. Telling someone he was going to drive them to the gas station and then driving them to his father's mansion instead hardly counted as _kidnapping._ Besides, Zarkon had been the one to instruct (order) him to do it, so _if anything_ , it had been his father kidnapping someone, not Lotor.

Katie dragged her sneakers through the wood chips. "You know them?" Then, with much more interest, "And who'd you kidnap?"

Lotor sighed.

"First of all, I've kidnapped no one—"

Ezor snorted as she padded past him to inspect Katie the way a bird would inspect a worm.

"—second of all, this is the daughter of one of my father's associates: Katie Holt."

The angle of Ezor's head left her cornrow braids to fall in front of in front of his charge's nose, full lips pursed in thought.

Lotor couldn't see her face, but slowly, Katie raised her finger. She gingerly tapped one of the large beads that Ezor kept threaded to the ends of her braids, then yanked her hand back, guilty.

Ezor's face Lotor could see, and it grew into a delighted grin. She caught a few of her braids and dangled it in front of Katie's face, wiggling it like a feather toy.

"Her father mentioned that she needed looking after, as her family spends much of their day on business," Lotor said as he watched Katie poke at the beads more, batting them gently and seemingly hypnotized by the sparkle. "And I was available. It seemed like a good arrangement."

Acxa sighed. "Well. I guess you didn't kidnap her."

"Thank you," Lotor said magnanimously.

Ezor let out a _snrk_ noise and Katie flinched, glare-pouting up at her and snatching her hand away.

"She's a cute kitten," Ezor pronounced, and rocked back, flipping her braids over her shoulder.

"She looks like a wimp," Zethrid put in, disappointed.

_"Hey!"_

"We should move on," Acxa suggested, shifting, "Or we're going to be late."

Katie was slouching in her seat. Under her breath, she grumbled, "I'm not a wimp."

"You're tiny!" Zethrid, both hands on her hips, laughed her loud, abrasive laugh, which was just as painfully startling as it always was. "Come back when you've put some meat on your bones."

Lotor was content to passively watch the proceedings, but Acxa took that moment to address him.

"Make sure not to corrupt her or anything," she drawled, sounding about as unamused as she was amused. "Her parents wouldn't like that."

Katie's eyes cut to his, her face deliberately blank. Lotor looked back into them and read, _Corrupt me? Would you really?_ there.

"Of course not," he replied smoothly. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Katie's eyes twinkled for a brief second before she glanced away.

Acxa regarded him suspiciously, then sighed. "Well, that's as good as we're going to get. Let's go, ladies."

Ezor latched onto Zethrid's arm and waved over her shoulder. "Bye, Lotor! Bye, kitty!"

"It's _Katie,"_ Katie grumbled at their retreating backs, but waved back anyway.

Silence reigned over the tiny playground.

"Your friends are weird," Katie decided after their backs had turned the last corner. "But, like, good-weird."

"...Thank you," said Lotor magnanimously. He rather thought so too.

"So... about that 'corrupting' thing..."

Lotor raised an eyebrow. "Did you _need_ corrupting?"

"Depends," she said archly, pointing her toes out in front of her. She dipped back and grinned. "Ice cream counts as a corruptive food, right?"

He should have known.

"I suppose so." He glanced down at her angelically hopeful smile and added, "I'm afraid that the only ice cream that qualifies is peanut butter ice cream, though."

Katie's mouth dropped open in horror.

"It's your choice," he said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and turning to leave the way that the trio had gone. Bait, laid; trap, set...

There was a scrape and scuffle behind him as Katie escaped the swing, then the light crunch of wood chips under her feet as she caught up. _"Fine."_

Her parents were going to kill him one day, Lotor mused as he lead them to the ice cream shop. It was only a matter of time and junk food.


End file.
